Big Fees for Little Credit

SOME issuers of recognition card game are "quietly collecting 100s of billions of dollars in net income selling nearly worthless, predatory recognition card game targeting vulnerable consumers, including those with bad credit," according to a study published this hebdomad by the National Consumer Law Center (). Alex Eben Meyer

Related
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(californiacreditlaw.com)
(nationalgeographic.com)
(nymag.com)

How "quietly" these companies are operating may be unfastened to question. But the study states that some companies issue card game with the exclusive purpose of collecting fees from fleeceable clients — not offering them credit.

A typical illustration the law centre offered was this: a card issued with a recognition bounds of $250. After a $95 programme fee, a $29 apparatus fee, a $6 monthly "participation" fee and a $48 yearly fee, the consumer winds up with "an blink of an eye debt of $178 and purchasing powerfulness of lone $72."

Included in the study is the narrative of a crewman on leave of absence who charged $85 to her new card. Because of all the fees, that put option her over her $250 limit, which led to punishments and a balance of more than than $300.

The study name calling assorted companies that have got issued these cards, including . That depository financial institution "sometimes have used fee harvesting," according to the report. A Capital One spokeswoman denied that, noting that while the company offerings a "full spectrum" of recognition products, the lone fees assessed, including 1s on low-end cards, are late fees and those imposed on borrowers who travel over their limits. Unlike other issuers of subprime cards, she said, "we don't enforce application, processing or other such as fees." The report, she said, "completely mischaracterized our concern model."

The study singled out , based in Atlanta, saying it have got been "frustrated in attempts to acquire its ain depository fiscal institution charter."

The law centre said CompuCredit's financial statements revealed that the issuer "collected $400 million in fees from a portfolio of fee reaper card game that by mid-2007 had saddled cardholders with nearly $1 billion in debt." The company issued a statement, reported this hebdomad on (), calling the study "misleading." It also sent a missive to the law centre before the study was published insisting, among other things, that its card game "meet or transcend the federal regulating demands and industry best practices."

The Golden State Recognition Law Blog (), tally by a San Francisco law firm, said, the "fee reaper card game look like recognition cards, but they have small or nil to make with issuing credit."

GOING deep The soaring terms of gold is causing excavation companies in South Africa to drop to amazing depths. programs to bore to 2.5 statute miles at a mine outside Johannesburg, and that would be a record, studies National Geographic News (). Other companies aren't far below (or, above) that mark. But the deepest mine in the United States attains just 8,000 feet.

The hazards of what is called ultradeep excavation are high. Temperatures rise above 100 grades and "rock shatters like glass," according to Saint Nicholas Wadhams of National Geographic. And, he says, some seismologists believe such as deep ours can potentially do shudders in the Earth.

THE dandy ABIDES Bash you ever inquire what became of the "Dude, you're getting a " dude? New House Of York magazine's Chow Street blog caught up with Ben Curtis, the erstwhile pitchman, at his new workplace: Tortilla Flats, a Manhattan Tex-Mex restaurant, where he be givens barroom ().

Is he often recognized? "Every day," he said. "It's really difficult, but it's a demeaning experience. There were modern times when I made shiploads of money as an actor, but here I can be myself."

Complete golf course are at nytimes.com/business.